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May 23, 2008

Teddy, Hillary, Rummy And Puppy

If the ritual is still fairly new, being the subject of a retrospective NYT slideshow typically indicates that your career, your mortality, or both, is at serious issue. In the past week, the stricken “lion of the Senate” has been the subject of not one, but two of these presentations.

Of the photos from this historic life and prodigious career, I found this one the most politically interesting. (And then, how often do you have something this good to read at every corner?)

— A candidate for the time capsule, the picture reminds us how Cheney/ Bush and the neocons so thoroughly dominated this decade that the Dems mostly seemed like part of the furniture.

— Besides Teddy’s contemptuous glance, what is classic is the way a freeze-frame Rummy seems to admire his own body language (the gesture, alone, worth all kinds of thoughtful speculation).

— As you know if you’ve been around here that long, I was also fascinated with Rummy and puppy.

What makes this an incredible image, however, is not just Hillary’s pose, but the Hillary – Teddy resonance as it relates to today’s politics. If you saw the recent piece at TPM Cafe, it expresses the logic of Hillary not just growing her role in the Senate, but ultimately aiming for Kennedy’s legislative station as a master of the chamber, and (following through on her campaign convictions) a champion of the poor and working class. That scenario is captured right there in the picture — with Kennedy collecting his glasses, looking back and moving to exit while Hillary holds down the seat, looking off in a pleasantly visionary way.